A big red hot chili logo?

Yesterday I was on the CIFA heading to Machala, the main city an hour in a half from my site. As it never fails to hold true, the CIFA was as usual a miserable experience, one that is only endured out of pure necessity to leave my site every once in a blue moon. I had spent an hour in a half on a steaming hot overcrowded bus trying not to look at or accidently bump into the breast feeding mother on my left side, with her breast hanging out on full view, and having a smelly overweight man´s butt in my face and occasionally hitting me since his balancing act standing in the aisle wasn´t the best. Needless to say, I always hope for something positive in Machala to make up for the ride there.
Entering Machala, the bus passes by Shopping, the strip mall with a great food court and walmart-type grocery store. Now having passed by Shopping so many times in the past it usually doesn’t catch my attention, but this time was different.
There it was, a huge red chili logo right next to the movie theater´s sign on the outside of Shopping. It caught my eye even on a speeding bus, and I had to look back for a second look just to make sure it wasn’t an illusion.
Nope, it is real. THAT is the Chili´s Logo… Chili´s THE restaurant has a logo outside of Shopping…? Strange, real strange. First instinct, I pull out my phone and have got to call a fellow Machala volunteer:
Me: ¨Oh my god, I think there is a logo for Chili´s outside of shopping.¨
Volunteer: What? The restaurant?
Me: Yeah the restaurant! Could that really be Chili´s, or do you think someone is just using their logo, cause that wouldn’t surprise me as much either…?
Volunteer: I don’t know, I was in Shopping two weeks ago and didn’t see anything, but maybe it could be.
Me: Hmmm tomorrow I think we need to go to Shopping and investigate this.

My investigation the next day confirmed it. Chili´s is opening a restaurant in Shopping, just an hour in a half from my site. Now, it´s not like I´ll probably ever really go since I´m sure it´s way out of the Peace Corps budget, and our usual $1.50 lunch deals, but just the idea of a well-known American restaurant opening up so close took me by surprise and for some reason is really exciting. It even has the same ugly red-white striped window coverings from back home. And the ugly matching strips on the booth seat coverings. Now, we just have to wait for the opening to see if the food and drinks are also a taste of home!